Victim 'admits to injecting mercury' in Sprite poisoning

Beijing - A man who first claimed to be poisoned when drinking a Sprite soft drink has admitted to putting mercury in the beverage container, the Beijing News reported on Friday.

Though the Beijing police refused to comment, saying the case is still under investigation, sources told the newspaper that it had confirmed the mercury was "injected into the container".

On Nov 7 last year, 21-year-old Ma Sai, a worker at the Xuanwu environment and sanitation bureau, was hospitalized for mercury poisoning after he drank a can of Sprite in a restaurant in Xidan, a shopping district in the capital.